The present invention relates generally to electronic medical record systems and, more particularly, to a known type of system—referred to as a ‘health information exchange”—via which electronic medical record systems can share information.
Electronic medical record systems offered by a variety of vendors are used by hospitals, physicians' offices, laboratories, and other health-care-related facilities to store and retrieve in electronic form information pertaining to their patients. Such information may be in the form of patient identification data; various kinds of industry standardized electronic records such as CCDs (continuity-of-care documents), CCRs (continuity of care records) and CDAs (Clinical Document Architecture) documents; written textual material such as progress notes and discharge summaries; laboratory test results; and images such as X-rays and MRI scans, to name some of the most common. Each separately accessible datum or collection of data is referred to herein as a “health document.” (In this specification and/or the claims hereof, the term “health information” is used to encompass both health documents per se and/or lists that identify (e.g., by title, date, etc.) one or more health documents, as will be apparent from the context.)
A health information exchange allows electronic medical record systems to share their health documents with one another. In operation, electronic medical record systems whose owners subscribe to a particular health information exchange upload individual patient's health documents into an electronic document repository maintained by the health information exchange. The information can be later retrieved by other health information exchange subscribers, enabling, for example, a presenting patient's healthcare provider (e.g., hospital) to readily obtain health documents that were created elsewhere (e.g., the office of the patient's primary care physician).